


Finally

by TWDObsessive



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Includes canon moments from Season 9 previews, Love Confessions, M/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-30
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-07-04 09:53:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15838851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TWDObsessive/pseuds/TWDObsessive
Summary: Carol and Daryl are chatting late one night as both suffer from insomnia.  Rick joins them and the two men confess their feelings.





	Finally

**Author's Note:**

> The writer's block has been god-awful! I'm still trying to finish up a chaptered fic but had to break from it to try to stretch my legs with an impromptu one-shot. Big thanks to lotr58 for the beta!

Daryl sat on the concrete block, the night sky lit by the stars and a sliver of moonlight. Taking a deep drag off his cigarette and exhaling the grey puff of smoke, he heard a door open. Carol’s footsteps fell gently on the hard ground as she walked his way. He didn’t even have to look to know it was Carol. They had a friendship that allowed for things like that -- just _knowing_.

He handed the cigarette up to her and she took it, holding it only briefly before she dropped it and stubbed it out with the toe of her shoe.

“Those things will kill you,” she said quietly as she sat down to join him.

Ignoring her comment, he looked over at her with a thoughtful expression on his face. “Why aren’t you in bed?” he asked.

“Why aren’t you?” she responded. After a few moments of companionable silence she continued, “We don’t sleep. Ezekiel on the other hand sleeps like a baby. It’s annoying.”

“Does he snore fancy, too?” Daryl asked, his low mumble probably only understood by her and a few others who had known him since the beginning of the apocalypse. 

“Stop it,” Carol said with a smile as she softly nudged her friend with her elbow.

“Nah, he’s alright. He’s a bit corny, but...” Daryl’s words died on his tongue as he realized he couldn’t find the ones he needed.

“Glad I have Pookie’s approval. After what I went through with Ed, corny is really, really nice.”

She looked so bright, so happy and at ease. She had something he’d like to have -- a relationship, intimacy, and a soul mate. “Well, I’m happy for you. If anyone deserves to be happy it’s you.” And Daryl meant it. He still remembered the beaten-down wife who had lost her little girl. He remembered her as a fragile eggshell of a woman, though that was definitely no longer the case. None of them were the same anymore, for better or for worse.

It had been a year-and-a-half of rebuilding and things had settled down enough for them to sit and talk again like real people. People took moments out of their day to have lunch, to check on family, to tell a few jokes. There was occasional laughter even. It still sounded forbidden, like talking in a library. Sounds of happiness had been gone from the world for so long they were barely recognizable.

“So when are you gonna grace a certain someone with your companionship?” Carol asked with a cheeky grin.

Daryl shrugged shyly. “I don’t need no one,” he lied.

Carol sighed and looked at her friend, her affectionate gaze filled with sympathy. “Michonne and Rick have been broken up plenty long. It can’t hurt to talk to him, feel him out.”

“Feels like she stole him from me sometimes,” Daryl confessed. “I miss being with him 24-7. Miss when it was just us, back at the farm, the prison.”

“Time passes and things change,” Carol answered wistfully. 

“You know, the day before Jesus found Michonne and Rick in bed together...I almost...I almost tried to kiss him. I chickened out. We’d had such a crazy day and we was leaning on the bumper of the truck together after we’d tied Jesus up and left him inside the cab. He was looking at me that way he has.”

“I know that look. I’ve seen the way he looks at you,” Carol said.

“I was drowning in that look. Getting weak-kneed and all kinds of girly shit. He’d been telling me how much he liked our days out on the road alone. I think I even started leaning in before a damn walker interrupted us.” Daryl took out another cigarette, lit it, put it to his lips and inhaled deeply.

“Now’s your chance, Daryl. Don’t let it slip away,” she said as she leaned in to meet his eyes. “You deserve to be happy too, Pookie.”

Daryl took another drag and handed it to Carol, watching as she stubbed it out next to her. He huffed a laugh and blew the hair back from his face.

“Do you think he knows?” she asked.

“That I’m in love with him?” Daryl asked. “I don’t know. Sometimes he looks at me like he knows every thought I ever had. Sometimes he seems far away.”

“He still seeks you out. Looks to you for advice...and for company.”

“He could have anyone,” Daryl argued.

“He could have _you_.”

They both turned at the sound of another door opening and of all the footsteps in the world, they were Rick’s. Daryl watched him walk out to the cement block where they were sitting. The light of the stars danced off him as if they were in his orbit, his freshly shorn locks glimmering, a bright sparkle in his eyes, just enough light to make out the way his legs bowed as he walked.

“Almost like old times, just the three of us,” Rick said as he sat down next to Daryl. He was in jeans and a tight white t-shirt. Daryl’s mouth went dry at the sight.

“Welcome to the insomniac’s club,” Carol said.

“Surprised to see you out here Carol,” Rick said with a cheeky grin. “Isn’t His Majesty going to miss you?” he joked.

“Stop,” Carol said in the same playful manner that she had earlier.

Rick laughed, the smile not quite making it to his tired eyes.

“But I’m missing him now that you mention it. So I’ll leave you two...alone.” Carol stood and ran her fingers through Daryl’s hair as she turned to walk back to her room.

The crickets almost seemed to fall silent upon her departure. The world listening intently, waiting for Daryl to spill words into the night.

“Feels good, just us. Like old times,” Rick said wistfully.

“I miss this,” Daryl admitted. The words exchanged were minimal, but they were heavy with deeper meaning. 

They sat quiet together under the stars, without the constant interruptions that daytime brought.   
No noise, no questions, no walkers, no people. Just Rick and Daryl and the night that wrapped around them like a blanket.

“You doing okay since Michonne?” Daryl asked.

Rick nodded and turned his head towards Daryl. “It was my decision.”

“Why? I mean there ain’t a lot of other options and Michonne...well she’s one of us.”

“I’m in love with someone else,” Rick answered quietly and Daryl’s stomach sprung with butterflies. He turned towards Rick.

“Who?”

Rick scooted closer so they were hip to hip and he captured Daryl’s eyes with his own. “We’ve been apart too long with the war and then all this rebuilding. I’m not happy when you’re not here with me.”

“I don’t have any allegiance to Hilltop. I could come home...come back home to you.”

“Please, Daryl.”

The archer nodded in confirmation. “I’m in love with you too, you know.”

Rick smiled wide and bright. “I always thought maybe...but it seemed too good to be true.”

“Since Atlanta, Rick. I fell head over heals right from the start,” Daryl confessed. 

Rick stood and faced his best friend. “It took me ages to figure out why my stomach did flip-flops around you. I haven’t ever...looked at a man like this before. But you’re special. You’re different. You’re everything.” He leaned in, bringing his lips as close to Daryl’s as he could without touching. “Can I?” he asked.

Daryl answered with a kiss. Tentative, hesitant, gentle. A fire burned in him as he flushed hot with the pleasure of capturing something he’d been chasing for years. Rick’s lips were eager and hungry as he kissed back with more passion, his hands sliding up into Daryl’s hair.

The archer’s nose was filled with Rick’s scent -- familiar, strong, powerful. The leader was so close -- lips touching lips, hands touching bodies, soft happy groans. The two men were in their own little microcosm. Nothing in the world but one another in a moment that would become Daryl’s fondest memory. The most wonderful thing that ever happened to him in his whole miserable life. The taste of Rick on his tongue and the knowledge that his love was returned.

And they kissed under the moon and the stars as the crickets chattered with the gossip of two new lovers finding one another in the great big world. A world where wars and rebuilding and walkers would only come second now to the love in Daryl’s heart. A world where Rick and Daryl were together. Finally.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope to get some encouraging comments to help me fight this writer's block! :-)


End file.
